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The Letters of H. P. Blavatsky to A. P. Sinnett - 1925
By A. T. Barker
Letter No. 104
17 Rue d'Ouest, Ostend.
January 10th, 1887.
My dear Mr. S.,
You want to know what I am doing? Atoning for my sins of having sent to you my Archaic Doct. before it was ready. Rewriting it, adding to it, posting and reposting, scratching out and replacing with notes from my AUTHORITIES. I was told to send you the MS. — but not told when. The Countess who is always on the look out for practical things, wanting to profit through Hamilton going back to London — made me send with him the MS. Two days after I was asked for it, and when I said it had gone was answered "so much the worse for you" — thanks. It appears that in its crude state it failed to make Mr. Crookes faint with rapture and he must have pronounced it a full blown flapdoodle. At least I augur it so and surmise, considering the chemical changes produced in it, in which neither before nor now do I understand one rap. Nor do I care.
The year 1887 and you 47? Well this is good. There are two roads for you, I see, and your luck and unluck depend on the one you will select. We all have quite a cargo of bad Karma around us, so we need not complain. But you have your health, something I will never have — and that's a blessing for you.
You are wrong in attributing to my neglect the review of your "United." It is there two-thirds done ever since you went away but I wanted to do it well, or leave it alone. Two pages were dictated to me — the rest left to my own brilliant pen. Hence it clashes like a star with a rush-light. I am on it again however and this time will finish it. Ah, my poor Boss, you are young, VERY VERY young in matters occult; and very apt to judge everything and everyone on the wrong rub, according to your own worldly notions. That's the trouble. Judge me as much as you like; only do not judge others, those one thousand times greater than I ever will be in ten Manwantaras, from the same standpoint; for the year 1887 would then be worse than the dear departed one, 1886. Fawcett is coming to see me on the 21st. He will be the first human creature I will talk to since the Countess is gone; for even my doctor is sick and I never saw him but once this month. For three weeks I am practising the Pythagorean "silence-vow" and see only astrals from morning till night.
You know, that young Fawcett is my great friend now. A few experiments having succeeded he sees in me a "Magician"! Only because I saw what he thought one or two nights, and described it to him. Well! I hope his enthusiasm will not evaporate or that of other ex-disciples of mine. A propos. The Russian papers are again full of me. It appears that "my hand" saved from a death peril a gentleman while he was occupied with abusing me and calling all my writings LIES. It is called "The Mysterious Hand" — Madame Blavatsky's slender materialised form was seen and recognised, the hand likewise, the voice ditto. My aunt is in a funk and a religious tremor on this occasion. Writes to me to enquire whether it is I, or the Chozain (Master) who did it. All mystic Petersburg in a fever; and the Holy Synode deliberating whether they should not send me to Ostend some holy water. A Tibetan who came back with the Prjivolsky expedition (or after it) — "a plant doctor" they call him as he produces mysterious cures with simples, told Solovioff and others it appears, that they were all fools and the S.P.R. asses and imbeciles, since all educated Tibet and China know of the existence of the "Brotherhood in the Snowy Range," I am accused of having invented; and that he, himself, knows several "Masters" personally. And when asked by General Lvoff what he knew about the London Psychic R. Society since he had never been in Europe before, he laughed and told the General "looking him straight between the eyebrows" that there was not a book of any importance pro or contra Tibet and its wise men, that remained unknown in Tchigadze. When the General "much struck," asked him if that Brotherhood would not help Russia against England — the "Doctor" laughed again. He said England or Russia were all one for the "Wise Men;" they left both to their respective Karma (which word General Lvoff mistook for Karpa "a carp"!) But that "the English seemed to help theirs (Karma) as if they did it on purpose for their own ruin; as they did in politics entirely only that which was fatal to them now." And then follows a whole para. the summary of which is that which Master wrote to another General in Petersburg and what I told you when you were here.
My dear Mr. Sinnett, I speak seriously to you, since you are not one of those madmen who ever mistook me for a Russian spy. You are as blind in your devotion to and admiration of your conservative politics as a husband with a beloved wife who makes him love. You do not see its faults, Masters do; and though they do not care one pin for you English more than for Russia, Turkey or Bulgaria, They care for the T.S. in India. And if you go on (your Salisbury, the old idiot, I mean) in the way he does and plug up Bulgaria before Russia's nose, she will play you a nasty trick I tell you in India and through Afghanistan. I know what you do not know through the Masters. And if they do not understand according to your opinion much in politics, then perhaps you will allow a British officer in India to know something. And this is what he writes to me. I quote . . . "I cannot understand this senseless rabies on the part of the English press against Russia! Surely she has as much right to interfere on behalf of Bulgaria as we have in Egypt. It's so foolish too; for if we go to war, which God forfend (?), we shall be utterly crushed. If we cannot subdue Burma, how can we expect to be victorious over Russia? (This is private and confidential. H. P. B.)
And it is a fact. And if you are crushed in India then the T.S. will be crushed for ever and ever. Amen. I hope I may die before I am placed in such a despairing condition as to have to wish evil to my own country and blood, against those who hate and have ruined me in this life for ever, only because the T.S. is in Madras and our best Theosophists Hindu, under the rule of those who have and are so cruelly wronging me. Ah, dear Boss of my heart. Were it not for the Society and Masters to whom I am daily sacrificing my life-blood and honour, were it not for a few like you among the English, whom I have learned to love as my own flesh and bone (metaphorically for my flesh and blood I hate) — were it not for all this how royally I would have hated you English! Indeed, the behaviour and policy of your present Cabinet is disgraceful, contemptible, Judas-like, and foolish, at the same time, gloriously!
Churchill alone is acting like a man of sense and surprises me. I see he is no fool, and has a fair nose. His leaving your Salisbury in the lurch has perhaps saved England from a sudden pouncing of Russia upon you and with allies, my dear — such allies that your diplomats have never dreamt of — and not your rotten Turkey either. Take care, if you can help to take care in writing, do so, for the sake of your own country, if you cannot for the sake of the T.S. Meanwhile here I am: called back to India and cannot go.
I wanted to answer all your questions but your letter is mislaid somewhere — can't lay my hand on it. Well this will do. We are en train to buy a "convent" for Theosophists to live in cheap. It is Hartmann's idea.
Many kind "loves" to dear Mrs. Sinnett.
H. P. B.
